How to Install Python 3.9 on Amazon Linux

Written by Rahul, Updated on October 31, 2020

Python is a powerful programming language. It is very friendly and easy to learn. During the latest update of this article Python 3.9.0 (of Python 3.9 series) latest stable version is available to download and install.

This tutorial will help you to install Python 3.9 on Amazon Linux systems.

Prerequisites

Installing Python from the source code require GCC compiler. So must have installed required development libraries first.

Open a terminal on your system install prerequisites for Python:

sudo yum install gcc openssl-devel bzip2-devel libffi-devel

Read: How to Use SSH to Connect Remote Linux Server

Step 1 – Download Python 3.9

Visit Python official download page and download the required Python on your system. Alternatively, You can use the following command to download Python 3.9 on local machine.

cd /opt 
sudo wget https://www.python.org/ftp/python/3.9.0/Python-3.9.0.tgz

After download finished, extract the archive file.

sudo tar xzf Python-3.9.0.tgz

Step 2 – Install Python 3.9

Use the below set of commands to compile Python 3.9 from the source code and install using the altinstall command.

cd Python-3.9.0 
sudo ./configure --enable-optimizations 
sudo make altinstall

make altinstall is used to prevent replacing the default python binary file /usr/bin/python.

Now remove downloaded source archive file from your system

sudo rm -f /opt/Python-3.9.0.tgz

Step 3 – Check Python Version

The Python 3.9 binary is installed under /usr/local/bin directory. As we have not overwritten the current Python version, you need to run Python 3.9 command as following:

python3.9 -V 

Python 3.9.0

Step 4 – Create Python Virtual Environment

Python provides to create isolated environment for the application’s. Where you can create a environment directory with specific Python version. This will contains application specific packages.

Use the following command to create environment directory:

python3.9 -m venv env

The above command will create a directory “env” in current directory containing all the required files for isolated environment.

Every time you need to make changes in environment, Use below command to active it.

source env/bin/activate

After activating the environment, you can work with your application.

Once your work finished, use following command to deactivate the Python environment.

deactivate

Conclusion

In this tutorial, you have learned to install Python 3.9 on Amazon Linux using source code.